They have been turning into either a) promotional emails or b) web pages delivered by email.

I’m sure you know what I mean. Go back a couple of years and you could look forward to receiving your favorite newsletter in knowledge that newsletter itself would contain some great content...something you could read and enjoy, or learn from.

You could open newsletter in your email and read it, from beginning to end. There were articles, reviews or just personal rant...well written and interesting.

In short, there was real value, right there in newsletter.

These newsletters, where significant value lies in body of newsletter itself, are becoming harder and harder to find.

Instead, more and more companies and organizations are using their ‘newsletters’ as a promotional ploy to drive you to pages on their sites.

In one way, it’s understandable. As anyone with a newsletter knows, if you have one or two links to your site in newsletter, your site traffic really spikes on days you send out newsletter.

Use tip sheets to encourage clients and prospects to sign up for your e-mail Newsletter. Permission Marketing, a marketing concept popularized by Seth Godin, is based on obtaining your client’s, prospect’s, and web site visitor’s permission to communicate with them via e-mail.

Often, hardest part of a Permission Marketing program is developing an incentive to persuade clients, prospects, and web site visitors to send you their e-mail address and permission for you to send them your e-mail newsletter. That’s where tip sheets come in! Tip sheets are short, formatted, documents that contain non-selling information your market will find useful. Clients and prospects appreciate tip sheets because they contain helpful information that helps them save time and avoid mistakes.

Advantages

Tip sheets are easy to prepare and can be distributed for free as electronic files. You don’t need many words, and you don’t need fancy graphics to communicate a credible, competent, professional image. Clients and prospects like tip sheets because they contain helpful information presented in a short, concise, easy-to-read format which saves them time.

Steps to success

1.Create your tip sheet. Choose a topic that either helps your market achieve a goal— save time or money, increase sales, win a race, etc.— or avoid making a mistake, like a bad buying decision. Ideas include: frequently made mistakes, questions to ask when buying, trends, symptoms, installation tips, usability techniques, shortcuts, and workarounds.